SJS Image Change

S.J.Suryah seems to have finally realized that he needs an image makeover. With New and A Aa , the director anointed himself the king of sleaze in Tamil cinema and garnered the image of a director who primarily used sex and vulgarity to sell his movies. But looks like he now wants to move away from that image.

I did feel that Kalvanin Kaadhali was adversely affected by Surya's image since I think the reviews of the film were prejudiced by his image. The reviewers probably had a preconceived notion about the film (because of its hero) even before they saw it and walked into the theater expecting it to be a sleazefest. The reviews reflected this. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that it was a family film or that it offered clean entertainment. The fact that its hero is a playboy who spends the majority of the film trying to bed the heroine should make it clear that the movie is adult fare. But I feel that the movie wasn't as vulgar as most of the reviews made it out to be. Considering its story, it was rarely exploitative and the vulgarity was limited to double entendre jokes (made mostly by Vivek).

But the reviews probably kept the family audiences away from the film, impacting its performance at the BO. It was still a hit but that was probably because of its low cost and the lack of competition.

So Suryah feels that his image needs some scrubbing and is apparently scripting a film called Pesum Dheivangal, a clean family entertainer. I completely understand his attempt to change his image. But what I found funny was his hope that, with this film, he would get back his Kushi family audience. So Kushi was a family film and had a family audience? That was the film whose story hinged on Vijay staring at Jo's waist and in which a buxom Mumtaj brazenly seduced Vijay while singing Kattipudi Kattipudiaa... and in which Vijay and Vivek indulged in conversations filled with double entendres, right? Just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same film!

I don't think any of Suryah's films has had a family audience. Even Vaali, his best and most successful film so far, was quite adult in both theme and execution. But starting with Kushi, his movies turned vulgar and that's where the problem is. So he doesn't need to necessarily direct a family film. He just needs to direct a non-vulgar(and not necessarily non-adult) film to get an image as a good director.

PS: If he also stopped acting, that would be an added bonus :-)